The Arecibo Message: Fifty Years Since a 1,679-Bit Broadcast Toward M13

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Frank Drake and Carl Sagan helped send the first intentional message to space from Arecibo, encoded in binary with basic biology, DNA, Earth’s place in the solar system, and a simple human figure, taking three minutes to transmit 1,679 bits from a 1,000‑foot dish with megawatt power toward the M13 cluster, a signal that would be detectable across the galaxy if there were receivers, the cluster has since drifted about 50 light‑years closer to us, and the telescope collapsed in 2020, marking a milestone in the push to contact life elsewhere and in broadcasting Earth’s presence.

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1st intentional signal to space sent by Arecibo 50 years ago

About fifty years ago, the Arecibo Observatory sent the first intentional interstellar message, designed by Frank Drake with contributions from Carl Sagan, encoded in binary to convey 1,679 bits of information—covering basic biochemistry, the structure of DNA, Earth's place in the solar system, and a stick figure of a human—transmitted for three minutes by a megawatt transmitter into a 1,000-foot antenna, producing a 20 trillion-watt omnidirectional-equivalent broadcast aimed at M13, a globular cluster roughly 25,000 light-years away at the time that has since drifted to about 50 light-years from us—and the telescope collapsed in 2020, making it a landmark in radio astronomy and in the search for life that illustrates both ambition and the risks of broadcasting Earth's presence.